Yes, Chris, I'd agree with all of that, and with Duxby. I'm just cautioning against armchair economics. Even the professionals get it wrong with alarming frequency, try a google search for $200 or $250 oil and spot the 'expert predictions'. Go a bit further back and look at all the newspaper articles on how clever it was to buy to let.
Good background reading is 'The Black Swan'.
Wiki
Whilst I'm not saying they're wrong, 35% up from what? That makes a difference but it doesn't make a headline. Everyone has an angle, particularly governments, journalists putting together a story and CEOs making announcements. A case in point is the series of 'crisis announcements' post 9/11. Most of them turned out to be cheap excuses to get rid of old aircraft and lay off staff without too many questions being asked by shareholders. Look at 9/11 now on the graph of passenger growth over the last 10 years and you can hardly see the blip.
Ask yourself, if you hadn't seen the news for six months whether your opinions - based entirely on your own experience - would be as strong.
You are actually correct, the time
not to start an integrated course was 12 to 18 months ago, but you couldn't tell people that at the time even if you knew it - they were so sure they were right.